What Does A Black Swan Have To Do With Lesbianism?
by caballlah
Summary: She's the Dark Swan, got it, the DARK Swan!
1. Chapter 1

Regina had never been scared of Emma Swan. Even when it seemed likely that Emma meant to cause her physical harm, being frightened of her would've required Regina to concede that Emma was capable of hurting her. And by the time Regina would admit that Emma could actually do some damage, they were friendly enough that she knew Emma wouldn't hurt her.

Even when the omens and portents that seemed to hang over Storybrooke like a mist seemed to promise Emma would become evil, Regina wouldn't believe it. Not Emma, who had never been infected with it like Regina had, who hadn't had it passed on to her by her parents or learned it at the feet of someone like Gold. Thinking of Emma as dark—truly _black,_ not like Little Bo Peep or Ruby waking up on the wrong side of the bed—was ridiculous. Regina didn't recognize in her anything she saw in the mirror.

But then she was in Camelot's tower, paging through yet another moldy text, when she suddenly felt that old presence. The taste of power in the air, the madness that heeled like a trained dog, the feeling of a phantom intelligence, human and inhuman, regarding her with its cold capriciousness… it was like she was training under Rumpelstiltskin again, having another of her tête-à-têtes with him.

Then she turned and it was Emma. And in that moment of cognitive dissonance—the sight of Emma feeling like the Dark One—Regina was scared. Not for herself, exactly. Scared like she had been for Daniel, only Cora had at least left the memory of him. Darkness meant gouging out those happy memories, replacing them with the scar tissue of evil deeds. Someone kind and true, like Snow White, could look past all the pain and see the young woman she'd once known. Regina wasn't that strong. She thought if Emma started trying to hurt her, hurt her family, then she wouldn't be able to help hating her.

Regina feared the thought of again being the woman who hated Emma Swan.

Emma still hadn't said anything—lurking in the shadows with only a silent gaze, how Regina would've _loved_ for that to be Emma's MO, once upon a time. Regina gestured around herself, at dark corners and candles burning low. "There you have it. The endless glamor of _her Majesty_ at work."

"The Savior," Emma corrected.

"It's a name. Outside of magic, they have little real power. A rose by any other name…"

"You saying I smell sweet?"

 _Sweet as poison apples, my dear,_ Regina thought but didn't say. Funny how many she'd tried to corrupt, entice. The Huntsman, the Prince, the Pirate and the Hatter, even the Queens of Darkness—never Emma. Her, Regina had only threatened. They'd never been two to work together. With them, it was kill or be killed.

Until Emma had turned her…

"Emma, it's Camelot," Regina said. "Isn't there something you can find to entertain yourself?"

"I'd been to enough Ren Faires even _before_ my life became a Ren Faire." Was it just Regina's imagination or did Emma sound— _rougher?_ "Might as well help out here."

Wordlessly, Regina held out a scroll.

Eyes growing wide in a bit of surprise, Emma leaped off the wall she'd been leaning on, snatching the scroll from Regina's hands and examining it like the teacher's pet hoping to get extra credit. "No wonder it's taking so long to find anything. These are all anagrams or something."

"They're in Latin."

"I knew that."

"If you want to help," Regina began, voice lilting in familiarly fond exasperation. "I could use some fresh candles."

"Candles," Emma nodded. "Anything else?"

"Some wine, perhaps?" Regina added. Then, seeing Emma's wide-eyed eagerness to please. "A few thin slices of mutton. A fresh loaf of bread. A cut from the cheese wheel—not too much that there'll be a lot leftover to become hard, but I don't want to be left wanting more cheese either. Use your own discretion."

"Thank you for your trust in me," Emma said seriously.

"And some fruit. Oranges, grapes, mango if they have it—"

"Pretty sure they don't."

"A pineapple! Ask for it. They won't want to give it to you, but they'll give it if you ask." Regina kneaded her hands together. "Finally, some proper food-!"

"What, you don't like McDonald's?"

Regina frowned at her. "No artificial preservatives, no sweeteners, no transfats— _this_ is what they mean when they talk about natural food."

"I kinda prefer my mutton approved by the USDA."

"Don't make yourself too useful," Regina warned. "I could get used to ordering you around."

She focused on the texts as Emma silently flowed away, a chill going through her as she realized how quiet the clopping old bull in a china shop had become. She stared at the words, and they swam before her as she tried to figure out if she'd read them before.

Everyone else _had_ something. Charming had his knighthood. Snow had Neal. Belle had the library, which she was combing through for any clues outside of Merlin's hoard, as well as the sweet agony of worrying over Rumpel. Hook had Emma, Regina supposed, and furthermore, _she_ had Robin, not that she was apt to spend time with him after that cruel reminder at the ball of the penance she was supposed to be doing.

While the others all enjoyed their little day-trip to Fairy Tales, Regina hid from what she'd been. She tirelessly researched a way to save Emma, and the answer proved as elusive as vengeance against Snow White. No matter which side she was on, the universe conspired against her. She should just turn evil again so good could keep winning. It'd been a lot easier to accessorize then anyway.

Yawning, Regina stared closer at the scroll sitting on the tabletop. Closer… closer… until her head was lying against it.

Perhaps if she closed her eyes for a moment, then when she opened them the words would hold still.


	2. Chapter 2

_Every party needs a pooper, that's why we invited you._

Stupid childhood rhyme. Not even from Regina's childhood, but from Henry's. Something she'd heard him sing under his breath, jeeringly, when she wouldn't let him stay out late or go to a sleepover on a school night. The kind of mild rebellion she could tolerate, because she wasn't Cora, didn't want to rule him, didn't want to conquer his heart, just wanted her little piece of it. Part of his in exchange for all of hers.

It wasn't him singing it now. It was Rumpelstiltskin, Cora, Maleficent, Leopold, George—everyone who'd ever welcomed her into the ranks, recognized her as one of their number. _Every story needs a villain, that's why we invented you._ Funny. The Darkness had sounded so much like wind before—now it was voices, swirling around her, shouting out Emma even as it hid her from sight. And of course she could hear them. How could she ever have believed she would stop hearing them?

 _Every story needs a villain, that's why we invented you._

It was almost a relief. No more struggling, no more indecision. No more wrestling for Robin's heart, competing for Henry's affection. No more falling short and no more slipping. It was the Darkness. It had chosen her, because who else would it choose? Emma stood outside, screaming her protests, still wanting to believe the leopard could change its spots—Regina wanted to tell her not to bother. Maybe this wasn't written in the Storybook, put down by the Author, but it was far deeper than that, set down more indelibly than ink or stone, written beyond words, into her bones, her blood, her thoughts. Emma was the hero. She was the villain.

Like the old philosopher, she'd dreamed she was a butterfly. That didn't make her a butterfly.

Then there was Emma. Not caring what Regina had been. Not caring what she was capable of. Not seeing the blood that buried her up to her ears, the darkness she'd stuffed into her heart like poison, the pain that had spread outward from her like an epidemic. Seeing only… what?

What was left when you took away all the hate, the pain, the rage—everything that had defined Regina's adult life? What was it that Emma saw as worth saving?

What was worth more to a hero than being a hero?

Regina jerked awake. She wasn't at the writing desk, or the table, or the rocking chair—any of the places she had caught herself napping over the past few days. She was in the cot that David had dragged up there in the hopes that if she wouldn't leave the tower, she would at least sleep on something that didn't have a grudge against her spine. A vain hope, but that was the Charmings for you.

Regina sat up, the sheets falling off her. She'd been undressed as well, her dress removed to leave her in her slip. _Robin,_ she thought, with the oddest suspicion—the first thought of him touching her one of almost… _distaste._ But no. As familiar as they'd become, Robin was still too much a gentleman to manhandle her in her sleep. He'd let her sleep in her gown, no matter how uncomfortable it would be, or ruinous to the dress itself. No, it had to be—

"Emma," Regina said, a croak from her sore mouth. The blonde bumbler herself was sitting nearby, in the rocking chair, as cold and quiet as a reptile upon a wall. "You didn't use magic, did you? You can't have used magic to—"

"Believe it or not, I can carry an adult woman from one end of the room to another without supernatural powers," Emma said. "And take off her clothes too."

"And without even buying me a drink. My standards must be slipping."

Dark One or no, Emma blushed. "I sacrificed myself so you wouldn't turn dark. Seems a shame to go to all that trouble and then let you give yourself a hernia."

Regina paused. Her mind may have been a tad quick to suggest a fireball as a solution to her problems, but it also tended to notice what was wrong with certain pictures. Namely, Emma being there for her awakening. "Were you—watching me sleep?"

"I don't sleep. And there's not much of a nightlife in a medieval castle."

"Nonsense. This castle has plenty of knights."

Emma blinked. Then groaned. "I think you might've gotten a little Darkness in you. Definite sadistic tendencies."

* * *

Dressed—Emma let out a ruing chuckle when the cloud of purple smoke dispelled to find Regina in one of her pantsuits (Fuck her, it was comfortable)—Regina reheated the grown-cold food. Let the magic flow through her, winding back the clock so the cheese was soft and moist, the meat sizzling hot, the fruit almost freshly picked. It felt the way magic was supposed to feel: a oneness with the universe.

Light magic was so familiar to her now. The Apprentice's spell hadn't even worked for her; dark magic was now a foreign thing. She wondered what her heart looked like now. More light than dark? She didn't want to find out.

Emma. One day, could Emma be as attuned to dark magic as Regina had been? _Enjoying_ that sickly sweet power because it was better than the numbness. That strength and control and its strange beauty, in a world where all were so often stripped away. Regina didn't think she had ever been like Emma, a Savior. But Snow seemed insistent that once upon a time, she'd been as selfless, as brave, as true as the next princess. That this was not quite a redemption, but a return to form.

If she really had been someone to inspire such a first impression, one to linger with Snow past all the horrors of their rivalry… then who knew what Emma would be, one day?

She ate. Emma didn't. Regina wondered if she needed food. She hadn't noticed Emma eating over the past few days. She doubted it was because she was on a cleanse.

"What's it like being evil?" Emma asked. As sudden as the old imp appearing out of the shadows. He had the courtesy never to make Regina choke on a snatch of orange.

Regina wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Excuse me while I try not to take umbrage at the question."

"C'mon, Gina. Tell me that's not how you think of it."

"I really just try not to. And I don't like the tone of your question. You shouldn't think that—"

" _Don't,"_ Emma said, and the mutton on Regina's plate turned to rot and mold.

Regina faced her calmly. "Don't use your magic."

"Don't evade the question. All the others—they can tell me how it won't happen, no never, that there isn't an evil bone in my body, that I could never be the Dark One. I'd like to think we're bigger than that. I don't want to be reassured. I want the truth. It's not me giving up, it's just—I want to be prepared." Emma's voice was hoarse. Like she'd been _choked._

"What do you think it's like?" Regina asked instead.

Emma's eyes flickered at her. "I could still be a good mom. You were, even during the Curse. And I'm not angry at anyone, I wouldn't be lashing out at people. I could just… if I have to be bad, I can be bad to bad people. Like the Punisher. You'd be surprised how many of my boyfriends were into the Punisher."

"I'm sure I wouldn't be," Regina replied. "Emma, it's not like that. You don't care about others, about anything. It's… _I_ … I thought no one cared about me. That no one could care about me. And it took me a long time to realize all the people who _had wanted to,_ that I had pushed away to hold onto my anger, because I thought that was the same as my love for—" _His name,_ Emma's eyes seemed to prod. Those twin beacons whose gaze could never be dark. "For Daniel. It wasn't. You have so many people, Emma, so much family. Don't ever let yourself push them away." Then Regina laughed uncomfortably. It seemed sacrilegious, in a way, having Emma look at her with such sympathy while she was talking about what she'd done. "Forgive me if I'm being self-serving. I'm sure if you did become a villain, I'd be the first on your hit-list."

"More like the last."

"Emma," Regina said dubiously, the kind of reproach she'd delivered to Henry. "You don't have to spare my feelings."

Emma held up her hands, counting on her fingers. "My parents lobotomized me as a kid and locked me onto this Savior career path that, let's be honest, could come with better benefits. Belle enabled Gold for about a million years, and he got me into this mess. Grumpy is… just an asshole. Robin…"

"Yes?" Regina asked, setting her chin on her fist as Emma paused. "Do go on."

"Robin hurt you. And no one gets to do that."

"And what about Hook?" Regina retorted. "How come he gets to cut in line ahead of me?"

"Killian is… if I were evil, I would mind, but I'm not… I mean… I don't… he's great, we're great, it's just the Darkness, I think…"

Regina poured a goblet of wine and passed it to Emma. Not much peer pressure at all needed to make her drink it up. Regina hoped that particular gene hadn't been passed onto Henry.

Suitably quenched, Emma launched into an oddly good impression of that Hook accent that had lasted a thousand years, wholly unmolested by a lack of British Empire. "Swan, you just have to have faith in us! You just have to believe in my love for you! You need to fight as hard for us as I'm fighting for us!"

"I'm sorry, is this a CW series I should be watching?" Regina asked.

Emma sighed. "He loves me. I love him. Who could complain about being in love?"

"Try," Regina insisted.

"He's just so… so…" Emma ground her teeth together. "Needy! Or something! He's so convinced that all I need to do is love him, no, harder, no, _love me more,_ and then it'll all be okay! Like he's not living proof that you can love someone as hard as you want and sometimes _it's still not okay._ He's like…"

"One of those born-again types?" Regina ventured. "Who convert and then suddenly they just—"

"Cannot stop talking about Jesus," they finished together.

After a moment's laughter—it felt _good,_ like the pressure finally equalizing in your ears when you flew—Emma leaned back in her chair. "I should like it. I _should._ I want someone to fight for me and believe in me and tell me everything's alright. I want to be an _us._ Just… 'us' makes me half of something. I don't want to be a half."

Regina gripped the wine bottle again. It felt familiar, the lament. The sound had a taste to it that was sweet, whether she was hearing it inside her head or out. Robin Hood. Her soulmate. Her destiny. A new family with him, whole and mended, not the odd broken thing between her and Emma and Henry, littered with old suspicions and rivalries. That was what she was supposed to want. What she was supposed to need.

But he'd only ever been hers because he hadn't been Marian's. His family was something she'd stolen, not crafted, not found. Robin's wife, Roland's mother—not the Evil Queen at all. Just someone wearing Marian's mask as much as Zelena had…

Regina poured before the bottle could break in her hand. Filled her goblet and Emma's. Emma arched an eyebrow—it felt like a victory for her to be that expressive.

"Let's talk about something else," Regina said.

"Like how we're basically drinking moonshine here?"

"Like… Henry. Do you think there's some way we can keep up with his school curriculum while we're in this dimension?"

"Absolutely not," Emma said. "But I think he's crushing hard on one of the maidens fair—"

" **What."**


	3. Chapter 3

After a brief debate, and a briefer flurry of swearing, Regina and Emma agreed that this was a discussion that could not be resolved in Merlin's tower.

"I cannot believe you were going to let Henry learn about sex from _sex ed,"_ Emma cried as they came down the stairs.

"That's why I pay taxes! The curriculum is both thorough and well-researched…"

They came to David and Mary Margaret's room, where a knock on the door revealed it was open—of course. Inside, Mary Margaret sat by the window, cooing over a bluebird as it sat on the windowsill, singing to her.

She didn't look up. "I'm going to miss the forest animals here when we go back to Storybrooke. They're so much more polite… don't tell the chipmunks I said that."

Regina settled the debate over who would broach the subject with a look to Emma. Were they in deepest, darkest Africa, any given Zulu tribesman would still interpret this look as 'she's _your_ mother.'

"Mary Margaret," Emma ventured. "Regina and I could use some advice."

"Oh!" Mary Margaret straightened in her chair, facing Emma with a slightly awestruck smile. "You two are so independent. Hard to believe you could need help from little ol' me." She patted her knee. "Come, come, whatever you need, I'm happy to help!"

They went over to the window, but Regina resolutely pulled up a chair rather than come within striking distance of Mary Margaret's lap. "It's about Henry."

Mary Margaret's hands were instantly steepled under her chin, making her look rather like a scientist going over the results of a complicated experiment. "Mmmhmm."

"We know he," Emma went on, pausing briefly as David came in from the other room. "We know he's been spending a lot of time with a girl lately and we thought that, as a family, we should all have some advice for him and—well, I'm not mother of the year. I'm still on him being an adolescent. It seems like just last month he was twelve. But you, you must be like the Batmans of parenting. There must've been contingency plans—"

Regina took over. "What Emma's trying to say—in English, even—is that we wouldn't mind some advice on how to give Henry the talk."

"The talk of sex," Emma clarified. Then winced. "And not just the sex talk—lots of stuff about dating and kissing and… whatever. In fact, we can probably leave the sex talk out, right Gina?"

"It's the Middle Ages!" Regina retorted. "Do you know how young people get married here? This is like a whole world of Courtney Stoddens."

"Says the woman who dresses like every day is Halloween—at a sorority house."

Regina looked down at her partially unbuttoned shirt. It wasn't that obvious, was it? "Snow…"

"Regina has a point," Mary Margaret said diplomatically. "It really doesn't do Henry any good to have to figure this all out for himself. None of us wants him to go through life alone, and that's why we're all here, so any discomfort we have about sex, you can just _stow it,"_ she added, her voice raising, suddenly sharp, "because there are things my grandson needs to know!"

"Point taken," Emma said.

"It's almost like there was a teen pregnancy in the family," Regina observed.

Emma feinted winding up a punch for her. Regina primly offered her chin. But just as Emma threw her slow-motion haymaker, she froze. Looking over her shoulder with such obvious concern that Regina followed her gaze behind herself and saw—nothing. When she looked back, Emma had recovered, looking down at her shoes like there hadn't been anything at all.

"If nobody minds," David said softly. "Perhaps we could discuss where we first learned about sex, or how we would've liked to have been told about it… Regina? Anything to say on the subject?"

"No," Regina said simply.

"Nothing?"

"Does anyone here really want to know my mother's thoughts on sex?" Silence all around. "Thought not."

"There was something I planned on sharing with Emma," Mary Margaret said. "When she was old enough to understand. Maybe it's not as worldly as some of you might like, but I think it covers the basics."

"Regina, are you sure you want to be here for this?" David asked.

Regina was sitting forward in her seat. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss this for the world."

Mary Margaret cleared her throat and eyed Emma, who eyed her back dubiously. "Emma Swan… sometimes when two people are really in love, but they've already hugged so much and kissed so much and snuggled so much, they decide to do even more to show each other how truly special they are to each other."

Regina stood up. "I changed my mind, I'm out."

* * *

Robin was waiting for her in Merlin's tower when she got there. He looked up at her a little guilty—straightening up the mess she'd made of an already messy archive. "Just a little spring cleaning, dear. Did you know there was some rotting meat in here?"

"Yes. That was Emma."

"Of course. She hasn't threatened you, has she? I could always…" He made a gesture Regina couldn't quite interpret. "Hang about. In case things got rough."

Regina held in a sudden, irrational urge to laugh. Robin suddenly pitting a bow and arrow against the Dark One. It was reason enough to be fond of someone, that he'd be willing to do something that crazy for her.

But he'd do it for Marian, too.

"Robin," she said, wishing the name sounded more like it once had—having the soft chime of when she'd said it after seeing his tattoo. _Him, Robin, mine._ "Can we talk?"

"Of course, Regina, always," he said, drawing up a chair across from the one she sat in. "I hope you don't think I was out of line about Emma. I know she's your friend…"

"Yes… Robin, do you believe in earning things?"

Robin grinned, struck off-balance. "I suppose this conversation was bound to come up the moment I kissed a woman of the government. Yes. As long as the wages are fair and the work safe—"

"Not like that. I mean… Hook, for all his…" Regina wagged her head from side to side in clear imitation of Hook. "He said he'd fight for Emma."

"And I'd fight for you, Regina, don't you know that?"

"I think so. But only because you're supposed to. Not because you know me or have a connection to me, but because of—pixie dust and body art!" Regina threw her hands down. The words came smoother than she would've thought, the next one always behind the last—she thought she'd had these misgivings for a while. Never quite spoken, never quite crystalized. "If I were the same woman, who'd done the same things I had, but there wasn't some prophecy of us being together… would you still want me?"

Robin leaned over to her, reaching out to take her hand. She let him, wishing so much that it would make a difference. That she would feel some spark. Something she was supposed to. "Of course, Regina. I love you for _you,_ not despite what you've done or because of some magic spell."

"But that's just it. You don't know me. We're… roughly compatible. I kiss you and it's nice, you hear about my atrocities and don't care. All the necessary ingredients are there. I just don't know if that's all love is. Necessary ingredients."

"So first you're upset because our love's meant to be, and now you're upset because it's lacking in something special. Like destiny, fate, whatever you want to call it."

Regina shook her head. "I wish I were better at explaining this… you deserve a better explanation than I can give you. I love having someone who loves me. I love the thought of spending my life with someone. I love being an Us. But none of that's you, is it?" She watched his face fall and thought _oh, what an Evil Queen I am. To break his heart without even touching it._ "I'm in love with all these things, but I'm not so sure I'm in love with you."

He took a long breath. She heard it going in and coming out. "And you can't explain it better than that? I'm meant to simply accept that?"

Regina felt tears threading the needles of her eyes. "It's happened so fast. You were with me, than you were with Marian, than me, than Marian… Marian _died,_ Robin. Zelena used you and all that just goes away? We take Zelena's baby and we raise it as our own and suddenly we're what? Married? _A family?_ Just like that."

Robin got out of his chair, falling to his knees before her. "Would that be so bad? Haven't we waited long enough, spent long enough alone? Wouldn't it be better just to skip all that and just be together?"

"It would." Regina nodded. "It would. But it wouldn't be mine, I don't think. All I've ever wanted is a place in the world that's mine. And I've fought for that, I've earned that with Henry and with Mary Margaret and with David… even with Emma. If we're truly meant to be, then we will be together, whether it takes five months or five years or fifty. But I want to take that time, not just pretend."

"But _why?"_ Robin insisted, standing up again. Towering over her. "Why do you want to take time to confirm what you already know?"

"Because in the Enchanted Forest, we knew each other for a _year_ and you were still nothing to me. What's changed since then?"

" _You have,"_ Robin argued. "You've admitted you want to be loved!"

"But I don't need to be." Regina breathed for what felt like the first time in a while, her throat constricted, the air ragged and sharp. "My son, my _boy_ is with a girl now. And I want him to fall in love. I want her to be his best friend and his partner, the last person he thinks about at night, the first person he thinks about in the morning. I want him to have someone for when I'm not there. But I don't want him to choose that person just because it's easy, or convenient. I want it to be someone who he looks at and—it can't be anyone else. It just can't be. I owe him a better example than marrying a man because I'm not strong enough to be alone."

Robin sighed, shoulders sagging—the breath even louder than before, an explosion like something had burst in his lungs. "Very well. I can't pretend that I understand or approve, but you've always known your own mind. And if this is what you believe will make you happy, then I'll support you. As ever." He put his hand on her shoulder as he left. "Let me know if you need anything. You're worth waiting for. And fighting for, as well."

As the door closed behind him, Regina hung her head. His words were good to hear, no matter how bitter the aftertaste. And she still wanted to be fought for.

Just not by him.


	4. Chapter 4

"You missed a pretty thoughtful treatise on the missionary position," Emma said an hour later, back in Merlin's tower. She'd brought a wineskin, more for herself than for Regina. "And me catching up on thirty years of missed parental awkwardness."

"I came up with my own plan," Regina replied, still scanning her current text. "Laptop, Urban Dictionary, we leave him alone for five minutes."

"Kinda thought that would be my idea of sex ed."

"It was something of a trap," Regina admitted. "What's your plan?"

"I took a few notes," Emma said, holding up a memo pad from her sheriff days. "Mary Margaret's speech wasn't half bad. She doesn't use the Rhythm Method or anything. I figure we sit Henry down, I talk the talk, you jump in wherever. Between the two of us, should be a piece of cake. I mean, _we moved the moon."_

"Yes," Regina agreed. "Compared to that, how hard could it be to stop a teenage boy from having unprotected sex?"

"You think I should go to the bathroom in Granny's for some condoms?"

Regina groaned inwardly. "We could always put a curse on him…"

"We didn't do one to stop people from liking Minions and we're not going to do one now."

"Just a thought."

"Do me a favor," Emma said. "It's late. Pack in the books and the scrolls, get a decent night's sleep in a real bed."

"Or I could keep going and save the frickin' day." Regina aimed a smile at her. "How's my Savior impression?"

" _Or,"_ Emma countered. "We could talk about Robin Hood instead."

"You've heard."

"Man's suddenly drowning his sorrows down at the pub. Not hard to figure out why." Emma leaned against the table Regina was working at, demanding Regina's attention with a hand slapped down on her book. "The whole reason I took on the Darkness was that so you would be happy."

"Before you did that, you should've considered _I'm not very good at being happy,"_ Regina retorted. "Twenty years of living in my very own Happily Ever After, and changing dirty diapers was an improvement on it. What does that tell you?"

"That you know perfectly well how to be happy. Once you get out of your own way."

"Speaking of getting out of my way—" Regina tugged on the book Emma was leaning on, extricating it from her weight so she could turn the page. "I'll be happy enough once I've gotten the Darkness out of you."

"It'll still be there tomorrow. I'm the Dark One, not the Darker One. It doesn't come in stages."

"Feels like it. Feels like I'm— _we're_ losing you."

Emma flipped the book shut, right underneath Regina, and Regina was so _annoyed_ she just had to look up and meet Emma's eyes. "You of all people should know how hard it is to get rid of me. Now go to your room, get under the covers, _sleep,_ or I'll use all the foulest, most blackest of magicks to _make you_ take a catnap."

Regina's eyes narrowed. "Don't joke like that."

"Then don't tempt me."

Regina stood, pushing herself up and away from the table. " _Fine._ Amazing how your lacking instinct from self-preservation is now being extended to others."

"Yeah, yeah. March. One-two, one-two…"

* * *

Feeling like she was under armed police escort—which Regina supposed she _was,_ technically—Regina was virtually frog-marched back to her own room. Emma even got the door for her.

Inside, Regina puffed herself into satin pajamas with a silk turban around her precious hair. Emma's eyes bulged. Hell with it. When you had a magical wardrobe, why not experiment every once in a while?

"Now then," Regina said, settling down to apply some skin lotion that she had been thoughtful enough to pack (and that Mary Margaret hadn't; it did Regina some good to see her skin starting to look _dry)._ "Speaking of relationships I'm looking to end—you saw him again. Didn't you?"

Emma shook her head. "No business before bedtime. Sleep."

"If you don't tell me, I'm just going to lie awake in bed thinking about it. So you might as well tell me so I can sleep. _You saw Rumpelstiltskin."_

Emma crossed her arms, pacing to make herself a moving target. "I should hide it better. It would worry them, if they knew."

"I worry more not knowing. Has he spoken to you?"

"No, just—he's like a reminder. When I'm with Killian, or Henry, or you—I start to feel like myself again, and then he's there and I remember that I'm not the Savior anymore. Not even human anymore…"

Regina stopped applying her cream. Thinking of the long years with Henry, of forgetting the others' punishment in the euphoric rush of his growing. His first words, his first steps. How could she remember that she was a monster when he loved her so much? And then came that damn book, and that damn Bug, and she'd remembered. She didn't think she would ever forget again. She would just have to live with knowing she was both. Hero and villain. Mother and monster.

But she deserved it. Emma didn't. And if she could get that _thing_ out of Emma's head…

She finished the application in brisk strokes. "What does he want?"

"Use dark magic. Take over the world. Unimaginable power. Unlimited rice pudding. Business as usual."

"From what I remember of being evil, it was never business. It was always personal."

Emma faced her. Those stricken eyes in that innocent face… "Stop my parents from defining me. Have Henry all to myself. Make you…"

She looked away.

Regina went to the wash basin to rinse her hands off. "I can imagine."

"You really can't. Not like this." Emma's head, having lolled downwards, now shot up. "Enough questions. Bed. Now."

Regina cocked an eyebrow. "Why, Emma, this is so sudden. Aiming to be my rebound?"

"Jokes in the morning. Bed now."

"Shame. You're really something when you're all _commanding."_

Regina laid herself down on her side, the bed holding her like an open palm. She yawned, immediately tired with the mattress caressing her body.

"So," she said, when the long pull of oxygen had revived her a little. "Are you going to watch me sleep?"

Emma sat beside the bed. Her knees up, her arms on them, her position fetal except for how _tired_ she looked. A bland tiredness, one without hope of rest. "Yeah, when it hasn't been twenty-four hours since you nearly got shish-ka-bobbed by Prince Valiant, I deem you in need of protection."

"I can take care of myself," Regina said stoutly.

"I'm the Sheriff. I'll be the judge of that."

"I'm the Mayor," Regina argued hazily. "I outrank you."

"Nuh-uh!"

Regina started to respond in kind. "Yah— _yes,_ I do."

"Then why don't you get out of that bed and throw me out of this room?"

Regina bundled the sheets tighter around herself. "You win this round. But you were wrong before."

"You'll have to be more specific."

"About becoming 'the Darker One'. You're still _you,_ that's why Rumpel wants you using dark magic. So you'll be corrupted. And the Darkness is showing itself to you all the time, trying to break you—it's classic mental torture. I bet it'd even deprive you of sleep if you… didn't… need it…"

Regina sat up suddenly, throwing the sheets off. Emma groaned. "Are you always this hard to put down? Because consistently needing a nap would explain a lot about your dark reign…"

"It's a transition," Regina said, moving for the door. "You're being changed, bit by bit, and I bet part of that is the lack of sleep."

She threw open the door, just as Guinevere was passing and just as Emma was saying "Regina, please, come back to bed."

Guinevere stared. Regina closed the door. "As I was saying, it's all to make your mind vulnerable, to break you down one piece at a time."

"Great pep talk." Emma smoothed the bedding of Regina's mattress. "Look how comfy…"

"What if we made you sleep?"

"What, like by showing me Modern Family?"

Regina barreled on, hurrying to the things she'd brought—a go-bag of spell ingredients and casting cheat sheets. She dug through the fashionable, but sizable handbag. "Not for very long—just ten hours or so, then we'd wake you up. I'm willing to bet it would put a stop to this—Darkification. Maybe reverse some of the damage. At the very least, it would buy us some time."

"Yeah, but… ten hours of Modern Family? I'm not sure I can buy Sofia Vergara being married to Al Bundy for that long."

"No, a Sleeping Curse. Just a little one. Easily broken."

Emma thought it over. "Okay. But only if you sleep with me."

Behind the door, Guinevere let out a squeak.


	5. Chapter 5

It took an additional hour, which Emma pouted through as sullenly as Henry ever had, but Regina was able to put together a simplistic version of the Curse. The ingredients halved, the intent lessened, it would work, but only barely. There was no lightshow as Regina imbued an apple with the spell, only a bright, oily sheen that then faded into dullness.

"Anyone ever tell you that you really know how to hold onto a theme?" Emma asked, staring at the offered apple.

"Do you want a bite of my forbidden fruit or not?"

"You can stop that. Guinevere isn't listening anymore." Emma took the apple, looking it over like she was checking Regina's work.

"You're sure about this?" Regina asked.

"You're asking me?"

"If you want to talk to Hook or Mary Margaret about it…"

"And turn everything into a town hall meeting? No. If you think this'll work, I trust you. Besides, we can always get Hook or Mary Margaret or Henry to kiss me, if I really do go under. No problemo."

"There might be some nasty side effects. Nightmares…"

"As long as the nightmare isn't my life, I'll be fine." Emma sat down on the bed. "Promise not to dip my hand in warm water?"

"Actually, I've made a slight adjustment to the spell. St. John's wort, for good dreams. And I've imparted some of my own memories. Since what I think you need is REM sleep, you'll experience these memories as dreams, and, well—it'll be very pleasant."

"Being able to pull off leather pants and a metal bra. Sounds like a good dream to me."

"They're of Henry, actually. Just, ah, him as a baby. Trying to feed him or getting him to stop crying. Nothing too intense. It should disseminate into the dreamscape very easily." Regina tried to back away from the words, having Emma suddenly look at her like she really was the Savior. "It's the mystical equivalent of baby pictures. What better way to torment you?"

"Thank you, Regina."

Regina hated just having a statement like that lying there—the quite gratitude—nothing to cut it with, no way to get away from it. It was like she actually deserved it. "Take a bite already. The sooner you're asleep, the sooner I'm asleep. And I may not _need_ my beauty sleep as much as you do, but…"

"Okay then. Bottoms up." She took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. "How long does it take for this to kick—"

Her head made a soft thump as it hit the pillow.

Regina got her legs, arranging her atop the bed, then checking her vitals. Everything seemed in proportion to this kinder, gentler Sleeping Spell she had cast. Usually, the victim would be in a death-like state, but Regina could still detect Emma's pulse, the rise and fall of her chest.

 _Yes, stare at her chest, Madame Mayor, Guinevere will just love that._

Shaking off the stray thought, Regina arranged the sheets over Emma, then circled around the bed to her side. Well, customarily it would be the side of anyone else, since Emma had happened to sit on _her_ side before biting the apple. Regina really should've thought of that first; Emma finding a way to annoy her even in a coma.

Getting under the sheets, Regina took one last look at Emma's sleep. She looked peaceful, for the first time in a long while. And seeing her like that, Regina felt like she could finally relax.

* * *

Regina came awake, unbothered by dreams, and for a moment it was like she had the Curse again. Those long, blurry mornings of everything quiet, serene, no one to harm her because she'd made them all harmless, a world full of sharp edges made dull. Of course she'd grown bored with it, but before she had, it'd taken years to stop fearing someone would take it all away.

To believe she'd won.

And years more to find out she hadn't.

Regina got up to check on Emma. She looked settled, having tossed and turned in her sleep to get more comfortable. Now wound around her pillow, her hair unspooled, her lips parted and gently drooling. Regina clucked disapprovingly. This was her arch-nemesis. The woman who'd foiled all her plans. Only Regina hadn't… minded.

All the others, everyone else, they'd wanted to break the Curse, defeat the Evil Queen, bring Justice to the Land. They were all characters in that damned Book, and they'd known that it was them or her. They couldn't have happy endings while she did; she couldn't be happy while they were. And then Emma had come in. Wanting to break the Curse just for Henry. She'd done so much for Henry, for Mary Margaret, for David… and for Regina, too.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, Regina had found herself pulled into Emma's family along with her. She'd been forgiven, somehow, and redeemed and praised and loved… and Emma had been the first one to do it. Emma and Henry, and Mary Margaret, and David. A family. A place in the world. And maybe that world could still try to hurt her, but now she had people who would protect her to their dying breath.

And, with an actual gasp, Regina realized she would do the same for Emma. She had, without even thinking, risked her life for Emma simply because a world without this annoying, risk-taking, imbecilic blonde was not to be thought of. It would be like one of those sinisterly ironic fates she had given the good people of Storybrooke. She could have all the ingredients of happiness: Henry, Robin. But without Emma…

This was a lot easier for Regina to admit to herself when Emma wasn't speaking.

"Good talk," Regina said to Emma, who murmured in her sleep. Babbling as gently as Henry had. Imagine that, dogs and small children not running away from the Evil Queen.

She knew she should go get Mary Margaret. Or Hook. Or Henry. Or take advantage of the little loophole she'd left in making the spell and awaken Emma with the scent of hemlock. Instead, she picked up Emma's hand, the fingers so delicate, so soft, and brought the back of her wrist to her lips, kissing it so gently it was like she feared Emma would awaken, curse or no. She had no way to tell Emma what she meant to her—was no good at it, knew better than to try. But just once, she wanted it out in the world. That she cared for Emma, that Emma meant something to her, even if Emma could never ever—

Emma's eyes blinked open. Regina dropped her hand, backing up so fast she almost tripped on the hem of her own dress—she'd gotten far too used to pantsuits.

Completely ignorant of her, Emma sat up, stretched, and yawned. "You were right, Gina. I feel a _lot_ better. Only five percent evil, tops."

"Yes. Good. Yes," Regina said.

Emma pulled the covers back, swept her legs out onto the floor, and stood up. Cracked her back. "Maybe four percent evil. You want breakfast? Let's get breakfast."

Regina nodded numbly, her eyes finding the bitten apple on the nightstand. Standing there, flesh white as ever, almost as if mocking her.

She'd just given True Love's Kiss to Emma Swan.

What the _fuck?_


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Assume that in the interval between chapters, the flashbacks in 'Dreamcatcher' happened. And while I'm Noting, a big shoutout to my supporters for commissioning and supporting this fic.

Merlin was—well, the phrase that leapt to Regina's mind was 'maddeningly unhelpful.' At least, that was the first one that was G-rated.

"If I could defeat the Dark One, don't you think I would've done it?" he asked pointedly. "I do, however, know a way to break the Dark One's curse."

Regina let the others swarm in, all "tell us," "what is it?" This was why she preferred living on Earth. Everyone in fairy tales loved to play to a fucking _audience,_ and wasn't all the Enchanted Forest just so eager to provide one. In Maine, you'd at least get a few "fuck offs" and "who cares?"

"It's simple, really. It's a curse like any other, so you defeat it like any other curse. With True Love's Kiss. Of course," Merlin chuckled, "who would want to kiss the Dark One?"

Belle looked flustered, poor dear.

"Well, Swan," Hook said, grinning like he was underneath a staircase where all the women wore skirts. "Looks like you and I should swap some spit."

"I think she can spit on you from there just fine," Regina commented as Hook went to sweep Emma up and give her a decidedly anticlimactic kiss.

She resolutely faced Merlin as the attempts persisted. "They're currently dating," she explained.

"Well, True Love isn't something that just happens. It takes time to grow and be nurtured. You couldn't just… be in love with someone because they have a matching tattoo or something."

Belle cleared her throat while staring at Regina. "So what are we supposed to do?" Regina insisted, ignoring her. "Have a candlelit dinner? Play Elton John music while they sleep?"

"You could hunt them through the forest," Mary Margaret suggested. "That did wonders for my relationship with David." She hugged him, somewhat unnecessarily, Regina thought.

Merlin was looking between them like he wasn't quite sure what he'd woken up into. "Look, it's been a long couple centuries and I've been a tree for most of it—can I get something to eat, please?"

* * *

Regina waited for her moment while the others played 'Isn't There ANYTHING You Can Do?" She tried to talk herself out of it. There had to be another way. She just couldn't think of one.

She didn't even know how True Love's Kiss worked. What separated regular love from True Love? Had Emma really been born with magical powers just because David and Mary Margaret were so sickeningly saccharine with each other? Did no one else's parents love each other? What about Henry? Since Regina had True Love for him, did that mean _his_ child would have light magic? Regina hoped she wouldn't find out for a long time.

It all seemed so ephemeral compared to getting angry and throwing a fireball. She didn't even know if… if both people needed to love each other for it to be True Love. Could True Love be unrequited? That seemed like the cruelest joke imaginable, but Regina's experiences with the universe hadn't convinced her that was unreasonable. All she knew was that Emma needed her, that she could help, and that to do that, she needed to kiss Emma.

Obviously, this would take some finagling.

Once Merlin was alone in his tower, marveling at the mess that had been made of his archives, she confronted him. "I'm in love with Emma Swan. You can't tell her."

He eyed her. "Because you're oh so adept at keeping secret how you feel about people?"

And he wondered why someone had turned him _into a tree._ "I can give Emma True Love's Kiss, I just need—certain circumstances."

"You want me to suggest a game of spin the bottle?" Now he was just starting to sound like her inner monologue.

" _She's_ in love with Hook."

He looked momentarily more sympathetic than handsome. Which was saying something. "I understand how difficult that can be."

"It's not a problem. Swan's an idiot. I don't want to be in love with her."

"Yet you can give her True Love's Kiss?"

Regina waved him off. "There's a reason she can't know about this. But if you were to distract Hook—"

"Not to be presumptuous, but he's the one with the prosthetic, correct?"

"Yes. His nickname's as imaginative as the rest of him."

He smiled at her sarcasm. "So, while he's indisposed, you tell Emma how you feel—"

"No, no, _God_ no. I use a shapeshifting spell to turn into Hook and kiss her—"

To his credit, Merlin looked decidedly uncertain. "Ummm…"

"Just until the curse is lifted. That should work, right?"

Merlin jogged an eyebrow. "Theoretically, the Darkness would then be trapped inside the Dagger, without a host, and I could secure it. That still leaves the part where you disguise yourself as someone you're not and kiss his girlfriend."

"For purely altruistic purposes! It's not like I _want_ to kiss her." Regina wound her hands together. "It's just… it's that we're such good friends, probably, and we're so close, like sisters really—if there were such a thing as True Love's Hug, I'd give her that!"

"But instead you'll trick her into kissing her."

"Do you have a better idea, Treebeard?"

Merlin sighed, and Regina felt suddenly as if he were feeling what she felt when she had to deal with one of the idiots.

Which was ridiculous, of course. She was being eminently reasonable. She'd kiss Emma, lift the curse, then Emma could go right back to her pirate—

"What about Hook?" Merlin asked. "Won't he be a bit suspicious when someone tells him he broke Emma's curse? I think that might come up in conversation, once or twice."

"So put a memory charm on him. With the amount of rum he drinks, I can't imagine he remembers much anyway."

"And we're giving a man amnesia so you can kiss his woman." Merlin planted his hands on his hips. "The last time I pulled a plan like this, it got me Arthur. You can see how well that worked out."

"It's one little kiss!" Regina insisted. "And it's for Emma's own good. The last thing she needs to think is that we're some kind of… she wouldn't take it well. And she's been through enough. And she's sacrificed enough of her happiness for me, so if she wants to be with a man who wears more leather than a Hot Topic employee, I'll respect that!"

"Once you've kissed her."

"Leave it to a man to fixate on two women kissing."

* * *

Merlin was enough like her to see the reason of the plan, underhanded as it was. He agreed to distract Hook—code for freezing him in Merlin's tower. With him out of the way, Regina retreated to privacy and cast the spell. She'd come a long way since needing to beg Rumpel's help to change her form. It was almost effortless, but she checked her appearance in a mirror anyway.

And suddenly desperately wished she could shave, but that would probably set off Emma's alarms. Still, despite having just taken a bath, Regina splashed her face and rubbed her arms with water, hoping to give herself at least a feeling of freshness and cleanliness as she swaggered about in Hook's body. Doing it one-handed, she wondered why Hook had never bothered to get his hand restored magically. He must've liked the affectation, she decided. A _hipster_.

She went to Emma's room, wondering if it was out of character for her not to leer at any scullery maids or give manly, winking gestures to any of the knights she passed. Thankfully, she wasn't corralled by Emma's parents—the prospect had occurred to Regina and filled her with dread. That right there seemed like reason enough to avoid a relationship with Emma, even if Emma did return her feelings.

Regina wondered if someone could go their whole life without meeting an 'if' that big.

She came to Emma's door, uneventfully, and knocked on it with her hook, taking some solace in the pause before it was answered. She didn't know why it cheered her for Emma to be feeling somewhat begrudging about this pirate relationship—maybe after Robin, it was just that misery loved company. But Emma did answer the door, her cloak and hood set aside, the white dress she was left in simple and lovely in its simplicity.

"Not really in the mood for any more tries, Killian."

"That's not why I'm here," Regina insisted, _very_ disconcerted to have herself be the source of that goop Hook was always spouting. "I think there's something you need to hear."

"I know, I know, I should trust you. If I could just give in and love you—I know I should—then this would all be over and we could go home and deal with the next crisis. I'm sorry, okay!?" Emma's voice jumped up, making even Regina take a step back. "Affection isn't my strong suit."

"And that's who you are. If I felt you needed to apologize for that, I wouldn't be dating you in the first place."

Emma looked up at Regina, so surprised that for a moment, Regina wondered if she'd given herself away. But it was just a girl, looking at her boyfriend. All it was.

"Come in," Emma said. "I've got a bottle of that whiskey you like, and if I drink it alone I'll probably end up covering this place in a forest of thorns or something."

Regina stepped inside, thinking _so this is where the magic happens_. Emma had done little to adapt to her room, not taking advantage of it like Regina had. If Regina were in her own body, she'd give Emma a few tips—you tossed the chamber pot's contents out the window, you certainly didn't just put it in the closet and close the door like you were Mark Watney starting a garden. But Hook didn't strike her as the type to be so considerate.

"Here," Emma said, offering Regina a stout wooden cup filled with the sort of brownish concoction Hook went for. Regina obligingly drank it.

This was followed by her lungs making an escape attempt.

"You okay?" Emma asked, slapping Regina on the back. "Yesterday, you said it was a bit weak."

"It is, it is!" Regina insisted. "Some just went down the wrong tube, err, love."

Emma shrugged and filled the cup again, slugging it back herself, which gave Regina serious concern that the next time Emma kissed Henry goodnight, it would set him on fire.

"So what'd you want to tell me, now that you're officially dating the Dark One?" Emma asked. She refilled the cup and toasted 'him'. "It's not just a phase, Mom."

Regina swiped the cup from her. "I just wanted to say… my love for you isn't conditional. I don't need you to meet some standard."

Emma looked at her, almost pitiful in how touched she was, and Regina felt sick with herself—telling Emma these things through the mask of Killian. Well, Emma needed to hear it, and Killian probably would've said it if he'd thought to. He felt it at least, certainly. How could someone as wonderful as Emma be with someone who didn't love her that way?

"As dark as you go, I'll be there for you, no matter what. I'll keep you from being dark if I can, keep you from being alone if I can't. I'll never give up on you. Because you never gave up on me."

Emma shook her head. "If you knew what I was capable of—what I've done already…"

"I don't care!" Regina slammed the cup down on the nearest cupboard. "I care about you. You and only you. Whatever happens to you, however you change—you're still the woman I love."

"Killian…" Emma said, with a simple, unforced _fondness_ that Regina couldn't believe Hook owned, couldn't _believe_ that love was his to do with as he pleased. Her fingers rested on Regina's chest, Regina startled for a moment to be reminded that the flat plane of Hook's chest had replaced her own full breasts.

Emma took Regina's pitched breath as a sign of pleasure, and fondled the hard musculature with renewed vigor, Regina still shocked, both at Emma's brazenness and at her own response to it. Hook's oft-displayed hairy chest was certainly less sensitive than her own.

All of a sudden, Regina couldn't go through with it, couldn't lay claim to this faith Emma apparently had in _him,_ to this affection, to their romance. She wanted out of it, she wanted to be alone, she wanted to be untouched. She opened her mouth to make an excuse, but Emma shut off her flow of words with crushing lips—warm, soft, tasting of sweetness with a slight spice.

Her hands slid around Regina's waist, and somewhere in the confused jumble of Regina's thoughts, she found herself wishing that Emma's hands were fondling the rounded, ripe buttocks they deserved rather than Hook's pasty ass.

Emma didn't seem to mind though—body pushing against Regina's, flesh thrusting and squirming in one mass exodus from standing to lying down: atop Regina. Regina couldn't help herself. She returned the kiss, with interest, turning over so that she was on top, Emma pinned below her. Emma rebelled, pushing back playfully, but Regina pushed her down more firmly, giving Emma the kind of heated look that had dethroned kings, toppled kingdoms.

"Just this once," Emma said, relaxing supine upon the mattress they'd found themselves on. She'd learned enough about medieval customs to undress—pulling on either half of her dress, a little whiff of magic helping the clasps slip through their loops. Regina watched, ears burning as her eyes were given Emma's milky white body—broad hips, thighs sleek and full, soft belly that Regina imagined pillowing her head upon.

And a natural blonde. Regina'd never had any doubts that _Emma Swan_ was a blonde, but…

No, this was wrong, she couldn't—but Regina could see light beginning to gather across Emma's skin in coruscating patterns, energy misting off her as the curse began to crack.

Just a little more. Then she'd stop.

She returned her lips to Emma's, Emma's tongue stabbing fervently into her mouth, lashing Regina's own tongue to frenzied flame. Regina cupped Emma's face in her hand, amazed at how the clean lines of it fit so perfectly into her palm, how that golden hair welcomed her fingers. Regina held her assumed hook carefully free of Emma's face, wishing she could rip the whole thing off.

Emma's big blue eyes closed halfway, staring up into Regina's with a kind of surprise, a kind of mystery. Again their lips locked together, like there was a sweet suction only between their faces. As best she could with one hand, Regina caressed Emma's face, trying to tell her through touch that it would all be alright, that her nightmare was nearly over. Every brush of her fingertips seemed to draw a new spiraling pattern of magic to the surface, setting Emma aglow.

Then Regina felt Emma's hands at her waist, working at the belt, the buckle. That was too much, just too much. She reached down and took Emma's hands, pulling them upward and pinning them down over Emma's head, but that in turn pulled Regina down fully against Emma's body. Her nude and splendid body. She felt the hot resiliency of Emma's breasts, kneading against her own chest, and the throbbing urgency of her temporarily male desire where it surged against Emma's thighs.

 _This is so fucked up,_ Regina thought to herself, in the part of her brain that remained frustratingly disconnected from this sudden overload of Emma. _What are you doing for an encore? Letting Ruby turn into a wolf and—_

Emma used her legs now, bringing them up against Regina's body, curving the sumptuous thighs and slender calves over the backs of Regina's legs, around the curve of her spine. Regina wondered just how flexible Emma was—she wondered _hard_ —before remembering that she was Hook at the moment and whatever Hook left to be desired, height was not one of them.

"You've never kissed me like this before," Emma whispered, so bright she almost hurt Regina's eyes.

"I've never needed you like this before," Regina said, not sure if she was pretending to be Hook or if she meant it. It all seemed to blur together—she just knew she had to kiss Emma.

And she did. Locked her into their kiss, her tongue sliding sensuously into Emma's lush lips, Emma's loins swaying against Regina's upper thighs, her lower belly, their bodies chest to chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, and mouth to mouth. Until Regina had to breathe—she would've cursed herself for lacking the lung capacity of her true form, if she still remembered the transformation—and pulled away from Emma, who smiled up at her with her eyes as she too panted for breath.

Helplessly, Regina looked down at Emma's erotically displayed body, spread out for her eyes and only hers, to be touched by her hand and only hers. It was all she wanted, all she needed. Her place in the world. Her happy ending.

Against the buzzing of her discontent subconscious, she kissed Emma's sloping throat with desperate need, like somehow she could not only dispel Emma's curse, but undo all the mistakes, all the regrets, everything that could ever come between them and everything keeping them apart. Like she could love Emma so hard that they would just be together, no Hook, no Robin, no Charmings, just _them._

"Regina…" Emma murmured, passionately, lovingly, and even Regina's hard-won conscience went dead at hearing her name spoken so reverently by this—her True Love.

"Regina," Emma said again, realizing, panicking. She jerked herself away from Regina, the glow darkening past even her usual tan, leaving her skin pale and lifeless, without even the milky creaminess Regina had enjoyed. Emma waved her hand—dark magic, so putrid Regina almost gagged to feel it, ripped Regina's disguise from her in an explosion of purple smoke that was just as quickly torn away from Regina's real body.

"I… I'm sorry," Regina said. "I didn't want to—I love you, Emma, but this was the only way to—I was breaking the curse, I almost—"

Emma wasn't Dark. That was the worst thing. Regina didn't see anger of malice in her gaze. Just confusion. A hurt confusion that was so _Emma,_ so damn Emma…

"I just wanted to break the curse," Regina pleaded. "Then I was going to stop, that's all it was, I was going to let you and Hook be and I would go back to Robin, I was _fine_ with Robin, you never would've _known…"_

"So you don't love me." Emma lifted herself off the bed, her open dress drifting off her. Emma's nudity—once so dazzling—now alien in its cold pallor, in the Dark One's sheer uncaring tolerance of Regina's gaze. "You don't want to be with me."

"That's right!" Regina cried, grateful to the point of tears that Emma _understood_ , knew Regina wasn't trying to destroy her happiness or take her away from Hook or do anything to hurt her. "It was just to break the curse, _that's all."_

Emma looked at her as if noticing her for the first time, seeing her for the first time. And even Emma's hair was turning white, all color washed from it, hanging about her face like the linen of an unwrapped mummy. "You failed."


	7. Chapter 7

"Do you know what the funny part is?" Emma could barely speak, she was laughing so hard, laughing hard enough Regina thought she would choke. "I thought it was finally happening. I'd really fallen in love with Hook, I'd _finally_ opened myself up and this was it. This was what love was supposed to feel like. But it was you… _you."_

Her voice curdled. She turned on her heel abruptly, disappearing into a burst of gray smoke, and when it was gone, she was wearing something like armor. Something black. Something Regina might've worn, looking too good to let anyone know she hated herself.

"Do you know what else?" Emma's teeth were gritting like brakes laying rubber onto asphalt. "I am sick and fucking tired of _castles_ and _woods_ and _ponies._ I want to sleep in my own bed. I don't think I've slept in my own bed since the Author stuck me in that goddamn tower for all those years while you played Snow White. I come back home, I get my memories back, and while we're still celebrating to cover up the fact that you _died,_ you _left me…_ I become the Dark One. For you. For _you."_

"Emma, calm down," Regina said, feeling distinctly un-herself. Emma had brought up the Author's fairy tale; she felt like she was back there. Playing someone else's part, trying to get some past version of herself to keep from making the same mistakes.

"Calm down? Is that going to help me with the _Darkness?_ Am I less evil if I'm _calm?_ Why do you know about it? What does anyone know about it? Oh WAIT." Emma stomped her foot, sending thunder roaring through the room. "Everyone's an expert on _my life_ and how I should live it except for _me._ Cuz I went to prison!" She stomped the floor again, sending a crack through it. "Because I gave my son up for adoption instead of raising him in a fucking crack den like everyone wanted me to! _Because I didn't believe in all the insane shit in my life that doesn't make sense!_ "

Magic shot out of her, flowing through the cracks in the stone floor, a maelstrom of psychic energy. The room shook with it, harder than ever.

" _I wanna go home!"_ Emma screamed at the top of her lungs, laughing wildly when she wasn't. Cutting loose, letting it all rip out of her. Regina knew how good it felt. Knew all too well. "I wanna sleep in my own bed! I wanna watch TV! I wanna wear normal clothes and walk around on a nice carpet! I wanna take a shit without a goddamn _bucket!"_

The room was metamorphosing before Regina's eyes. She recognized the final transformation from photos Henry had shown her—their lost year. It was the apartment in New York. Carpeting growing out of the stonework like a cancer metastasizing. Plaster icing over the walls' masonry.

"No more wooden chairs that give me splinters! No more drafty-ass stone! No more windows without screens like I want to be eaten alive by fucking mosquitos!"

"Emma, _stop!_ It's dark magic, it's—"

"You're going to lecture me about misusing magic?" Emma laughed harder than ever. The world had fully turned into Emma's apartment, overlaid on the castle's guest room like a TV's bad reception picking up two channels at the same time. All the furniture, all the decorations, they all just sat there like ice over a frozen lake.

Emma had stopped laughing. And Regina remembered how quiet and cold her mother could be, just before flying into a rage.

"I'm glad you don't love me," Emma said, her voice somewhere deep in her throat, barely making it out. "At least you're honest. But really, you don't know how to love anyone. Maybe that's why everyone leaves you. Daniel died—twice. Robin keeps choosing Marian over you, why is that? Why do you think Henry loves me more than you?"

"Stop it."

"Because I'm not _broken._ And you are. That's why you're going to go dark again, just like you have before, _over_ and _over_ again. Something's going to piss you off and you'll be throwing fireballs again, hurting people again. Everyone knows it. They'll probably be relieved when you do. Then they'll be able to stop pretending they like you."

"Emma, this isn't—"

" _It is not your turn to talk!"_ Emma gestured and Regina felt something wrong with her mouth. Couldn't feel teeth, her cheeks, her lips—realized she had nothing to feel with. Her tongue was gone. "You really don't think you have any friends in Storybrooke, do you? _Why would you?_ You were a monster for what, fifty years? Made your own son think you were crazy. Killed Graham. Raped Graham too. And then you got bored of it? Blamed everything on your big bad mommy, like there's anyone in that godforsaken town without a fucked up family. How were you ever punished? Greg giving you a few shocks? _You deserved it._ You deserve everything that's ever happened to you, just for being that damned ungrateful. You know how many girls I knew on the street who would've just _loved_ to be a babysitter with benefits for some old king? All of them. But you're the only one who'd let it turn her into Hitler with tits. Because you were _wrong_ before Gramps laid one finger on you. That doesn't go away just because you've decided to fuck another woman's husband."

Regina was almost afraid of the anger she knew would come, the rage she expected to find waiting for her, propelling her into action as she undid Emma's spell—it didn't come. She didn't feel any of the heat that had been her constant companion for so many years. Only something overwarm, moist as sweat, burning her like sunstroke. She was tearing up. She was crying.

"Don't cry!" Emma shrieked. "Don't you… I'm not the one who— _fuck!"_ She slapped Regina across the face, sending her staggering to the side, into the television Emma had conjured up, lifeless without electricity. Regina tried to steady herself on it and it toppled over, crashing to the ground as Regina backed away.

Footsteps outside in the hall. The door opened, Mary Margaret wanting to see what had happened, and Emma magicked it close. The heavy wood slamming into Mary Margaret's face, knocking her back into the hallway, cries of pain from outside, David trying to calm her down, someone else—Hook?—pounding at the door.

Regina forced herself to undo the spell on her tongue… it felt a lot like white magic, casting the counter-curse, and that gave her an iota of calm, a feeling of the eye of the storm. "Emma, please…"

"Leave me alone! Stay away from me!"

Emma held out her hand, energy cackling between her fingers, the magic of a spell ferociously contained in her ungesturing arm.

"Emma," Regina said gently. Just Emma's name, nothing more. Not moving closer to her, not talking to her, just being there. Hoping that would be enough to remind Emma where she was, who her friends were, what she could draw strength from.

Emma stared at her as if confounded—prepared for an attack but finding none coming. Her jaw was tightly clenched, tears flooding her eyes. Then she blinked and for a moment she just looked lost. The bail bondswoman from Boston who had just come to deliver a lost child to his mother, then found herself sucked into another world, where everyone had some version of her they wanted her to be. Daughter. Lover. Even mother. Regina had tried to be all of those things, at one time or another. She knew how hard it was.

For Emma, having to be all those people all at once… And now she was the Dark One. And once again, she was expected to fight against what felt like _herself,_ what Regina knew could feel so right. While the Darkness told her over and over again that they were forcing this on her, changing her, enslaving her to their friendship and family. It was such an enviable position—being a princess, a mother, the Savior—you forgot that she'd been branded with it. Like being the queen to an unloved king.

Regina held up her hand, not an ounce of magic in it, her fingers outstretched to Emma. A simple gesture. Less than a name, no demands, no plea. Just asking for Emma to take her hand, wordlessly, with only the plainspoken look in her eyes as argument.

"You don't love me," Emma said, standing there, and the door broke down and Emma reacted instinctively, sending a wave of force to knock down whoever had entered. Regina caught the curtail of it, enough to knock her off her feet, while Hook, the intruder, got the brunt of it. It slammed into his outstretched hook, sending it backwards into his own unprotected chest. With the half-buttoned shirt he wore, it was easy to see where the hook now skewered his flesh.

Beyond him, Mary Margaret was on the floor, face half-hidden with blood, David over her trying to stop the bleeding. And Henry was there, and Belle… Belle putting an arm around Henry, protectively, pulling him back like he was standing too close to an abyss.

"It's alright!" Regina cried. "It was an accident!"

Emma saw her, saw the cut at the same time Regina became aware of the blood trickling down her face. When Emma had slapped her, a ring on her finger had cut Regina's cheek.

"I wanna stop now," Emma said. She waved her hand.

They froze. Every drop of blood, every panicked expression, every distrustful eye.

She took a haltering step toward Regina. Regina couldn't move. She didn't know if it was a spell or just seeing Emma like this.

"It's them," Emma said in a strangely calm voice. "All of them. They're all so… horrible… aren't they? You were right about them."

"Emma, it doesn't have to be this way, you can fix this—"

"I can… I really can." She waved her hand over Regina's face and the stinging pain went away.

"No, no more magic, Emma…"

"Why not? That's what they've all wanted from me. Everyone always wanting _something._ Fight Cora, fight Pan, fight Ingrid… they all want me to be the Savior and in return for what? So I can live in their crappy little town, waiting for the next thing that tries to kill me, waiting for something else in my life to turn out to be a lie? No. I get to decide what I am. I want to be this. I want to be me."

"This isn't you," Regina protested.

Emma ignored her. "I want them to know how it feels for their entire world to lie to them. I want them to forget, to hope, and then see the monster they've made, all at once. And I want you to forget. I want you to forget that I loved you. It's your turn to stand alone in the night, wondering why the person you love doesn't seem to care about you." Emma gestured. There was a dreamcatcher in her hand now. "You can just forget… everything I said to you. You can care about me again. And I'll be the one saying no."

"Emma, I do care about you, still, no matter what—"

The dreamcatcher glowed with power. Regina could see herself in it, entering Camelot… the first of her memories to go.

"You can go back to Robin, and I can hurt him then. I've seen you suffer before; it's hurt me every time. You weren't worth it. I want you to suffer like I did. I want your heart to break all over again when you realize he's not your happy ending. I'll watch the look in your eyes when you realize it was me, but now all I feel for you is loathing."

"Emma…" Regina watched the memories going into it—soon, it would be all the hateful things Emma had said, all the hurtful emotions she'd thought would end their friendship for good. As violent and as burning as the harm she'd caused Hook and Mary Margaret, as she'd shown to Henry.

"I want you to see me with Hook," Emma said. "I want you to imagine me touching him, kissing him, and knowing it should've been you."

"Emma, I forgive you."

Emma turned and watched as now, now the last few memories went into the dreamcatcher. Erased, the final moments, the knowledge of how evil Emma had become. And the very last of them, that Regina still believed in her.

"I want you to forget that too," Emma said, and went to fix the others.


	8. Chapter 8

Regina lowered the dreamcatcher from her eye. It was dead now. Cold and lifeless. Download complete, files not copied but transferred, slotting back into her memory like they'd never left. As she'd watched, the feelings, the sensations of those memories had flooded back in. She'd recalled the smell of Emma, the feel of Camelot's stones, the taste of its wine. Now it all receded into the back of her mind, where it belonged, leaving her back in the present. Storybrooke. This… cavern of Emma's where things festered beneath the surface.

It was only right for her to be there.

"Do you hate me yet?" Emma asked. Regina had been vaguely aware of her before, thinking it was part of the memories—that familiar presence. It was and it wasn't. Seeing those memories had made her suddenly, shockingly aware of the old Emma, the real Emma—hyper-attuned to her like a bloodhound with a scent. She could feel that Emma now, hiding behind the Dark One's garb. All that darkness… just to protect her from Regina.

"I could never hate you," Regina said. She actually smiled. "Lost the knack for it."

Emma threw up her hands. Their shared weariness almost made them allies again. "Then what was the point of all this?"

"You tell me, Emma. And if it was all so Henry could have another chance with that girl…"

Emma ducked her head, burying her smile out of sight. Like it hurt and she didn't want Regina to see her bleed. "Like I said. I want you to hate me. That's the only way either of us will ever be happy. If you don't love me. If you kill me." She nodded her head to the side. "There's Excalibur. It's a whole now. Particularly good for killing villains."

Regina didn't even acknowledge that. Ignored it like it was something not-too-rude Henry had said under his breath. "Do you hate me?"

"I could kill you." Emma raised her hand, a spell on her fingertips. "It would be easy. Like snapping a twig. Only… you're…"

"You won't hurt me," Regina said, with a kind of sympathy. She knew that anger. The anger she'd held for Snow White, the anger when you were wounded, but you didn't want to repay the wound. All you really wanted to do was to heal it with something, anything. "You can't."

She'd never wanted to hurt Snow. Not really. She'd wanted to fix herself and thought evening the scales—whatever they were—would do it. And while she wouldn't have wished that hurt on anyone… of course it would be this way. Of course they'd end up here. Her, the only one who could understand. The sinner now, not the martyr.

"I did hurt you!" Emma snarled, her face changing like armor clanging into place. "I brought you and Robin back together only to force you to break your own heart again! I erased your memories! I tormented you, I mocked you!"

"So ask to be forgiven," Regina said. "Because I will. Did you think you could go so far into the darkness that I wouldn't forgive you? That you wouldn't be my friend?"

"My _friend,"_ Emma sneered. She paced, feet digging into the gravel like daggers. "Do I hate you? I'm _angry_ with you. I'm so damn angry with you, Regina, I don't know what to do with it! I don't know how I could let someone hurt me this much. I don't know how I could care about someone enough to let them— _I shouldn't!"_

Regina could hear it in her voice. It sounded more broken, more ugly than ever—a rusting, grinding machine just about to fall apart. She was tired. Whatever she'd hoped to accomplish, it wasn't working. The walls she put up weren't staying between her and Regina. The heart she'd tried to entomb was still beating.

"I'm sorry," Regina said. "I should've been honest with you. Told you how I felt. I wanted to protect myself."

"Then kill me!" Emma cried. A gesture and the sword flung itself into her hand. She placed the blade at her own throat, the hilt offered to Regina, her free hand darting out to capture Regina's, forcing it to the pommel. "You'll never love me. I'll never love anyone else. So just end it. Step away from the darkness once and for all."

"You're not the darkness, Emma. You're my light."

Emma groaned, Excalibur falling away, her fingers tearing at the neat array of her hair. It spooled out into frizzy tangles and she seemed on the verge of tears. "You don't _love me!"_

Regina swallowed. It hurt more than she thought, hearing that. But this wasn't about love; not yet, at least. It was about anger and pain and loving Emma wouldn't make those better. Only forgiveness would. "Are you sorry for what you did? Did any of it make you happy?"

"No! No, no, no, no! Nothing makes me happy—I'm dark! I'm evil!" Her clenched fists pulled free of her hair, leaving it dangling around her face like a bridal veil gone feral. "Did I hurt you?" Her voice was a croak—so far away from her old voice that Regina couldn't hear her in it anymore. She could only see the old Emma in those eyes.

"Yes," Regina admitted. "You did. And I forgive you."

The thing that had been Emma and was Emma still fell silent. Stopped, head downcast, like she was looking down at the fallen sword. In the darkness, shadows consumed her face, hiding all of her from view but a single hand. Regina could see the pressure on the fisted knuckles, half-moons of blood where her nails were driven into her palm.

" _Please,"_ Emma said, like the old Emma was gasping for air after rising from the bottom of the sea. And Regina went to her and embraced her and felt the too-thin body, the too-cold skin, the flesh clammy and hardened and the hair that was jagged like concertina wire and through it all, something that was _Emma_ relaxing into the contact.

Regina wondered when was the last time Emma had been _touched?_ Was it back in Camelot? Had it been her, when she'd kissed Emma, when she'd put Hook's façade up between the two of them?

"I'm sorry," Emma eked out, her Emma, the Emma she loved. "I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry…"

And Regina just held her.

"I fucked it all up. I fucked everything up."

"I let you," Regina countered. "I helped you. We've spent so long running from the truth. Running from happiness, wanting to be anything but together. Enemies or friends or— _anything_ so long as we didn't have to let each other in. Why not let it happen? Whatever it is—fate, destiny, love—just let it happen?"

Emma's eyes met hers. They were big and blue and full of tears and _hers._ "Do you love me?"

"I love you. I love our family. I love the son we've raised. I love all of Emma Swan. No—I _embrace_ it. Even the dark parts, the ugly ones, they're a part of you. I want them too."

Emma stopped sobbing. She had a smile more powerful than all her tears. "Then kiss me."

Regina did. More amazing still, Emma kissed her back.

Regina had given True Love's Kiss once in her life. It had been astonishing. But being the recipient of it—that was perfection. She wasn't just doing magic, she _was_ magic. She could feel the sunlight up above, the plants that took it in, the water that became vapor, the vapor that became clouds, even the darkness of storm clouds yet to fall—to become life-giving rain, cooling rain drops, white snow. It was all connected. And she was a part of it.

She and Emma. Part of each other.

Emma pulled away. Her Emma. Smiling like a big puppy.

"That was—"

Regina kissed her again. Just to be on the safe side.

She wasn't used to being in love. She needed practice.


End file.
